the annual family photo

One of the traditions I grew up with is the annual family photo. Each year, usually when Christmas was near, we would have our photo taken so we could send it out to friends and relatives overseas. We usually just set up the timer on a camera or ask someone to take the photo for us at home. There was one time though when we went to an actual Kodak studio to have our photo taken. I have that picture with me here.

The Kodak family photo

The annual family photo tradition is something I'd like to continue now that I have my own family. I wanted to have ours professionally done this year since it's Ziv's first Christmas, but I just found the packages here too expensive. Besides, there were a lot of things we had to consider such as Ziv's nap time, his anxiety towards strangers, the weather, the location, the attire--too stressful!

So I just took out my trusty tripod, mounted my EOS and whipped out my shutter remote control. We couldn't be bothered with the logistics of shooting somewhere that required a commute so we had the photo shoot at our estate's park. Same place where we shot Ziv's Halloween photos.

It was the last weekend of November and it rained the previous night. The sky was gray but I was thankful it didn't rain. I tried to get plenty of shots before Ziv (and ze hubby) got cranky.

The Mateo Family, 2011

Luckily, I managed to get a couple of shots good enough for our holiday cards, and that I even got a few shots of Ziv smiling. It was almost his nap time when we packed up.

I'm happy with the way our photos turned out, and they didn't cost a cent.